News and analysis of critical issues in homeland security

October 26, 2006

Today was the yes-we-really-mean-final deadline for compliance with the new e-Passport requirements for participation in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), and DHS reported this afternoon on the state of compliance. 24 of 27 VWP countries were able to comply with the new rules, with the European microstates of Andorra and Liechtenstein and the Sultanate of Brunei as the only laggards. Their non-compliance is essentially trivial – their combined population of 500,000 is on the order of 0.1% of the total VWP-area population. This deadline had to be extended by a year in each of the last two years, but evidently the third time’s a charm.